Analog Video

Despite the increasing adoption of digital video, analog video technologies like VGA, Component, S-Video, and Composite / CVBS continue to be the interface of choice in many established applications and industries. Routing analog video signals, however, presents numerous challenges for engineers, including impedance linearity, attenuation, DAC power consumption, and bandwidth requirements, depending upon the technology in use.

Diodes Incorporated offers a wide selection of switches designed to maximize video image quality for all major analog video technologies:

VGA

Impedance linearity in VGA systems often becomes a concern when switches are used in the signal chain. Diodes Incorporated's patented charge-pump technology provides ideal linearity in terms of impedance control and greater simplification for signal routing. In addition, Diodes is the only company to offer VGA switches with the intelligence to turn themselves off when they are not connected to either a video source or display.

Component Video

Component video is composed of three separate, uncompressed video streams often referred to as RGB or YPbPr, each running over its own wire. While there are no quality restrictions on color depth or resolution, there is a corresponding increase in signal bandwidth at higher resolutions that is compounded by redundancy in each channel. In addition, as these signals pass through switches, they can experience high levels of attenuation that degrade image quality. Diodes' Component Video switches eliminate attenuation issues to enable Component Video-based systems to maintain quality at higher bandwidths.

S-Video

S-Video encodes video luminance intensity and color content over two analog channels. To minimize system size, power, and design complexity, Diodes offers switches that support both channels in a single IC.

Composite Video / CVBS

Composite Video is a video-only transmission technology that carries definition video encoded over a single channel. Common formats for composite video include NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. Composite video is also often designated as CVBS (Color, Video, Blanking, and Sync). Because luminance and color data are modulated onto the same channel, composite video typically has lower quality than two-channel S-Video and 3-channel Component Video. Diodes' switches minimize signal losses to ensure Composite Video signals maintain their integrity and quality.